SiriusXM sees no “competitive issues” to block regulatory approval of paying $480 million for 19 percent of Pandora (see 1706090005), Chief Financial Officer David Frear told a Bank of America Merrill Lynch investor conference Friday. “I can't imagine why DOJ would step in the way.” Once the deal closes, under which SiriusXM will land three seats on the Pandora board, including chairman, “there are interesting strategic things that the two companies can do together,” Frear said: Most of the estimated 100 million cars on the road “are connected, and so we could engage them to the extent that there are people in those vehicles using the Pandora app and we could use that as a cross-marketing opportunity, right?”
SiriusXM sees no “competitive issues” that would block regulatory approval of its deal to pay $480 million to buy 19 percent of Pandora (see 1706090005), Chief Financial Officer David Frear told the Bank of America Merrill Lynch investor conference Friday. “I can't imagine why DOJ would step in the way of this,” said Frear. Once the deal closes, under which SiriusXM will land three seats on the Pandora board, including that of chairman, “there are interesting strategic things that the two companies can do together,” said Frear. “There is a solid strategy and path execution for Pandora itself to really maximize its value.” The average Pandora user spends “20-somewhat hours a month on that site,” he said. Compared with how much time people spend on Facebook or YouTube, “it's just an enormous amount of time,” he said. “So they have tremendous customer engagement. There is a lot of information as it relates to what people like to listen to.” How SiriusXM “can plumb that for other aspects of value is going to be an interesting dialogue to have” with Pandora, he said. Most of the estimated 100 million cars on the road “are connected, and so we could engage them to the extent that there are people in those vehicles using the Pandora app and we could use that as a cross-marketing opportunity, right?” he said.
SiriusXM sees no “competitive issues” to block regulatory approval of paying $480 million for 19 percent of Pandora (see 1706090005), Chief Financial Officer David Frear told a Bank of America Merrill Lynch investor conference Friday. “I can't imagine why DOJ would step in the way.” Once the deal closes, under which SiriusXM will land three seats on the Pandora board, including chairman, “there are interesting strategic things that the two companies can do together,” Frear said: Most of the estimated 100 million cars on the road “are connected, and so we could engage them to the extent that there are people in those vehicles using the Pandora app and we could use that as a cross-marketing opportunity, right?”
Much of the intellectual property that's the basis of Samsung’s invention of the technology now called HDR10+ appears to be contained in a U.S. patent that Samsung’s Korean parent landed April 25, Patent and Trademark records show. Samsung coincidentally was granted the patent (9,635,377) five days after the company announced HDR10+ with Amazon Video as an “updated open standard that leverages dynamic metadata to produce enhanced contrast and colors on an expanded range of televisions” (see 1704200043).
The FCC should waive Tuesday’s repacking construction permit deadline for stations assigned to channel 14, said Ion in a letter posted in docket 12-268 Friday. Ion has filed a recon petition (see 1708240040) asking the FCC to reassign stations that were repacked to channel 14 since they face interference from land mobile operations. “The Commission and ION know that any construction permit application ION files for channel 14 in San Francisco will result in ‘unresolvable interference.’ But if ION fails to file the required construction permit application by the upcoming deadline, it may be alleged to be in violation of the FCC's repack rules,” the company said. The FCC should act on its recon petition and similar requests by Univision and others, waive the Tuesday deadline for channel 14 stations, locate alternative channels for stations that were repacked onto the channel, and reimburse all stations there for equipment necessary to overcome the location on the dial’s interference challenges, Ion said.
While the FCC's move to lessen regulations on earth stations in motion is seeing general support from satellite and terrestrial mobile interests, disagreements remain over ESIM operations in certain parts of the 29.25-30 GHz band. Wednesday was the deadline for replies in docket 17-95. The rules harmonization and consolidation NPRM wasn't expected to see notable pushback (see 1705090018).
Technology and communications companies are stepping up responses to Storm Harvey relief efforts, as the impact of the multiday southeast Texas storm continues to unfold.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai kept a busy schedule during the last part of his Southwest road trip Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday, Pai was in Reno, tweeting he would be “exploring Western #Nevada infrastructure” at a roundtable with Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev. Wednesday, Pai met with Arizona broadcasters and Arizona State University professor Subbarao Kambhampati to discuss artificial intelligence. Also Wednesday, Pai went for a ride in Chandler, Arizona, in a (Alphabet/Google) Waymo self-driving car. “Impressive reactions to speed bumps, construction crews, & more!” Pai tweeted. Pai said he met with the Bureau of Land Management‘s team in Arizona on siting issues.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai kept a busy schedule during the last part of his Southwest road trip Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday, Pai was in Reno, tweeting he would be “exploring Western #Nevada infrastructure” at a roundtable with Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev. Wednesday, Pai met with Arizona broadcasters and Arizona State University professor Subbarao Kambhampati to discuss artificial intelligence. Also Wednesday, Pai went for a ride in Chandler, Arizona, in a (Alphabet/Google) Waymo self-driving car. “Impressive reactions to speed bumps, construction crews, & more!” Pai tweeted. Pai said he met with the Bureau of Land Management‘s team in Arizona on siting issues.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai kept a busy schedule during the last part of his Southwest road trip Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday, Pai was in Reno, tweeting he would be “exploring Western #Nevada infrastructure” at a roundtable with Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev. Wednesday, Pai met with Arizona broadcasters and Arizona State University professor Subbarao Kambhampati to discuss artificial intelligence. Also Wednesday, Pai went for a ride in Chandler, Arizona, in a (Alphabet/Google) Waymo self-driving car. “Impressive reactions to speed bumps, construction crews, & more!” Pai tweeted. Pai said he met with the Bureau of Land Management‘s team in Arizona on siting issues.